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At its May 5 field hearing in Albuquerque, N.M., the CFPB issued its proposal to ban mandatory arbitration clauses in finance contracts. Financial services providers will still be able to include arbitration clauses in finance contracts; they just can’t use the agreements to stop consumers from being part of a class action in court.

The dealer and state employee were charged with devising a scheme to buy high-mileage vehicles in nearby states, roll back their odometers, and then resell them in Georgia. They now face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

AutoBodyguard, a division of Dent Zone, has obtained the exclusive rights to Zavada Scientific’s organic odor elimination technology. Officials said the odor remover will be added to the firm's line of interior protection programs.

American Auto Guardian has named Ken Acha as its new Western regional vice president. He most recently served as regional director of sales for Hyundai Capital America, where he developed and launched the Hyundai Protection Plan in 2013.

The vehicle information site said this week that April sales are on pace to eclipse the April 2005 sales record of more than 1.5 million units. It also believes the industry is on pace to shatter last year’s 17.5 million-unit sales record.

The dealer group's U.S. F&I operations increased its per-copy average by $26 to a record $1,564. Including operations in the United Kingdom and Brazil, the group's consolidated average increased 0.7% to $1,385.

N.Y. Dealer Gerald McDonald pleaded guilty last month to submitting fraudulent loan documents to financial institutions. He faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced on July 19.

ChannelNet announced this week it will begin building customer lifecycle management programs and dealer portals for Hyundai Motor Finance and Kia Motors Finance in Canada as part of its new contract with Hyundai Capital Inc.

The percentage of alternative-fuel vehicles in the overall automotive market has dwindled over the last three years, the NADA Used Car Guide said this week. Hybrids continue to make up the majority of the alternative fuel market, but data does show consumers are beginning to shift toward electric vehicles in greater numbers.

Record F&I and fixed-ops gross profit helped Sonic Automotive offset low vehicle sales. But the big story for the publicly traded dealer group was the performance of the F&I offices at its one-touch EchoPark dealerships. They increased their per-copy averages by 54.1%.

Longtime industry veteran Mark Dubois has joined the association’s expanding Dealer 20 Groups team. He will work with BHPH dealer groups as part of the NIADA 20 Groups operation acquired from Leedom and Associates.

RoadVantage's newest product bundles GPS tracking with vehicle theft protection. Dealers can use it to keep track of and protect their inventory, while consumers can take advantage of a host of family safety features.

A CDK Global survey found that a large percentage of car shoppers want dealer websites to offer more of the car-buying experience online. Information from the survey also found that the majority of respondents felt more comfortable starting the car-buying process on a dealer's website as opposed to a third-party site.

Volkswagen has agreed to give buyers of the nearly 600,000 vehicles sold in the United States with the emissions cheating software the option of selling the cars back or getting them fixed, a judge announced April 21.

An Edmunds analysis found that only 27.5% of all hybrid and EV trade-ins in 2016 have been applied to the purchase of another hybrid or EV, an 11.3% drop from last year’s rate of 38.5%. A larger percentage, 33.8%, of trade-ins are going toward the purchase of SUVs.

The BMW Group's newest vehicle distribution center at the Port of Galveston, Texas, officially opened Wednesday. The distribution center, according to the company, will better serve the 45 BMW and MINI dealers in the nation’s southern region: Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.

TD Economics, an affiliate of TD Bank and TD Auto Finance, projects U.S. auto sales will peak at 17.6 million units this year before edging down to 17.3 million in 2017. But sales should remain at the 17 million-unit level for some time, the finance source’s economist noted.

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman’s initiative to end dealer “jamming,” or payment packing, has resulted in four separate settlements with four dealer groups. They agreed to return nearly $2 million in restitution to nearly 5,000 consumers and $174,000 in penalties and costs to the state.